Resources

As Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Michael O’Rielly arrive at the Federal Communications Commission, they face historic challenges and opportunities to shape the ways we connect and communicate for decades to come.

Here’s how the FCC should ensure that our public network and public airwaves provide better choices and more voices — by maintaining universal communications service, increasing media diversity, supporting local news and emphasizing political transparency.

The Public Interest Public Airwaves Coalition ("PIPAC"), whose members include the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Free Press, the Benton Foundation, the New America Foundation and the Office of Communication, Inc. of the United Church of Christ, along with the Sunlight Foundation, filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission about the agency’s rules requiring broadcasters to post their political files online.

Our new report tracks political ad spending in Denver. Since Aug. 1, campaigns, Super PACs and other groups have bought time to air more than 26,000 ads on the city’s four major-network affiliate stations.
Many of the ads — if not most of them — contain misleading information. But that hasn’t stopped these stations from continuing to do business with the groups that have purchased ad time — even groups that local newscasters called out for spreading dishonest information.
In this report, Free Press focuses on ads from the five Super PACs and outside groups spending the most in Denver. Read the full report here.

With more than $3.3 billion in political ad spending projected by Election Day, Free Press has turned its attention to the local television stations airing these ads. Left in the Dark explores whether stations barraging viewers with political ads are balancing this out with coverage of the role money is playing in this year’s elections. Read the full report here.

Freepress.net is a project of Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund. Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund do not support or oppose any candidate for public office. We are nonpartisan organizations fighting to save the free and open Internet, curb runaway media consolidation, protect press freedom, and ensure diverse voices are represented in our media.